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UCL launches new audio tour app for iPhone and Android

31 October 2013

UCL Communications and Marketing has produced a new audio tour app that allows students, staff and the general public to learn more about the Bloomsbury campus and the remarkable people who have studied, worked and lived here.

I’ll be your guide on this audio tour today… Together we’ll see palatial porticos and Georgian squares, encounter a mummified philosopher and the ghosts of the Bloomsbury Group, and hear tales of noble gases, and Nobel prizes...

Jonathan Dimbleby, UCL alumnus and narrator of the UCL Audio Tour

Broadcaster and UCL alumnus Jonathan Dimbleby has narrated the tour, which guides the listener through tales of stowaway students from Japan, museums filled with priceless artefacts and UCL's most famous resident – Jeremy Bentham.

The multi-layered stories, which include contributions from UCL academics, curators, alumni and current students, span the entire history of the university, ranging from its revolutionary foundation in 1826 and the damage it suffered during the Blitz, to the brand new Institute of Making – the state-of-the-art materials workshop now housed at UCL.

The app itself is designed to be used on campus and works with a smartphone’s GPS location-tracking to determine the appropriate story to play to the listener as they approach markers on the map. There will soon be large ‘Hear Here’ posters placed around campus to indicate the best locations for listening to a story.

The app also includes an ‘Armchair Mode’, allowing the listener to hear the stories found in indoor locations and to listen to the entire tour if they can’t make it to the Bloomsbury campus.